[r] Rev. East Apthorpe, S. P. G. missionary at Cambridge, Mass., had replied to a newspaper criticism upon the policy of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in New England, in his _Considerations on the Institutions and Conduct of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts_. Jonathan Mayhew published in answer his _Observations on the Character and Conduct of the Society_, censuring the Society not only for intruding itself into New England, but for being the champion of the proposed episcopate, which he denounced. This was in 1763. For two years the controversy raged. There were four replies to Mayhew. Two were unimportant, a third presumably from Rev. Henry Caner, and the fourth, _Answer to the Observations_, an anonymous English production, really by Archbishop Seeker. Mayhew wrote a _Defense_, and Apthorpe summed up the whole controversy in his _Review_.--A. L. Cross, _Anglican Episcopate_, p. 145 _et seq._; footnote 1, p. 147. [s] John Adams's _Works_, x, 288. [t] Dr. Charles Chauney attacked the S. P. G. as endeavoring to increase their power, not to proselytize among the Indians, but to episcopize the colonists. Dr. Chandler, of Elizabethtown, N. J., replied in _An Appeal to the Public_. Chauney retorted with _The Appeal Answered_, and Chandler with _The Appeal Defended_. The newspapers of 1768-69 took up the controversy. [u] In 1767, Dr. Johnson in a letter to Governor Trumbull assured him that "It is not intended, at present, to send any Bishops into the American Colonies,... and should it be done at all, you may be assured that it will be done in such manner as in no degree to prejudice, nor if possible even give the least offense to any denomination of Protestants."--E. E. Beardsley, _Hist, of the Epis. Church in Conn._, i, 265. [v] There were nine clergymen from Connecticut, and twenty-five from New York and vicinity. [w] The Association had sent petitions in behalf of the Baptists to the legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Both were refused. For its Circular Letter of 1776, see Hovey's _Life of Backus_, p. 289; also p. 155. [x] This year the Royal Society awarded him the Copley medal for his discovery that lightning was a discharge of electricity. In 1761 the medal of the Royal Society was also awarded to the Rev. Jared Eliot of Killingworth, Conn., for making iron and steel from black ferruginous sand. [y] John Trumbull, b. 1750, d. in Michigan, 1831; Joel Barlow, b. 1754, d. in Poland, 1812; Gen. David Humphreys, b. 1752, d. in New Haven, 1818. These Yale men, together with Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, were the leadjng spirits in the club known as "The Hartford Wits." Dr. Dwight was a fellow collegian with them. Trumbull and Dwight did much to interest the students in literature. The latter was also tutor in rhetoric and professor of belles-lettres and oratory. [z] Conn. Col. Rec. xii, Appendix. This was drawn up by the Governor and three members of the General Assembly, May, 1761.